'Tallest Midget' Brings Sportswriting To New Heights

August 19, 1987|By Reviewed by Russ White of The Sentinel Staff

Frank Deford's new book is actually two books -- the first being a poignant 11-page essay on the craft of sports-writing, the second a collection of Deford's best pieces from Sports Illustrated magazine.

The opening essay ought to be required reading for anyone who has any interest whatsoever in becoming a sportswriter. What follows should be read for sheer enjoyment.

It is Deford's contention that sportswriting is the only form of literature wherein the worst of the genre is accepted as the whole. ''Any well-written article or book about sports,'' he writes, ''is invariably praised by serious, patronizing critics as 'not really about sports,' or 'different from sportswriting.' '' Sportswriting is assumed to be second- rate, and, therefore, if any sportswriting is not second-rate, then, ergo, it must not be sportswriting.

With the bias against sportswriting being large, Deford senses that any good sportswriter is usually dismissed as the world's tallest midget -- hence, the title of his book.

While he is the first to admit that there surely are an ''awful lot of perfectly dreadful sportswriters around and about,'' Deford says there are some good ones lurking in the ''toy shops'' of many newspapers and at magazines such as Sports Illustrated.

''In sportswriting,'' Deford instructs, ''a lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing.'' What he means is that any hack can recite earned-run averages and free-throw percentages. Professional sportswriters, however, are those with the widest breadth of interest, those familiar with the whole world and able to apply its lessons and ironies to their sportswriting. The human condition is what really counts.

A 1978 piece by Deford, ''Rhythms, Baseball, and Life,'' is a delightful Opening Day feature that includes a visit to a Cracker Jack factory. What is baseball anyhow without peanuts and Cracker Jacks? Deford also takes us to the Louisville Slugger plant, where bats are made, and concludes with a closer look at Abbott and Costello's ''Who's on First?'' routine.

Readers find out all they want to know and more about tennis player Jimmy Connors, who appears to have grown old before he has grown up. Connors was very upset when this article first appeared in Sports Illustrated almost 10 years ago but has grown to appreciate it. ''Raised by Women to Conquer Men'' is about Bertha Thompson and Gloria Thompson Connors, Connors' grandmother and mother.

Deford traces the family ties and offers what he calls a great contradiction between the public figure and the private Jimmy Connors: ''a genuine personal prudery contrasted with a grotesque machismo and vulgarity he flaunts upon his stage.''

So, this isn't what you expect from a sportswriter. But it is, as the man says, sportswriting -- sportswriting raised a level above statistics and scores. Until a taller midget comes along, 6-foot-5 Frank Deford can stand proudly alongside his book and with his chosen craft.